From the Celts

to the Normans
Performer Heritage
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2016
 From the Celts to the Normans

1. The invaders of Britain

ca 700 BC – 43 AD The Celts

43 AD The Romans

The Angles and the Saxons from Germany

5th century and Scandinavia

9th century The Vikings arrived from Denmark and Norway

The Normans were the last invaders

1066 of the British Isles, they came from France

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 From the Celts to the Normans

2. The Celts: society

• They were tall and
muscular, had fair skin
and hair, and blue eyes.

• Women were almost

equal to men.

• They could lead men in

battle.

• They built hill forts on top

of hills surrounded by
Boadicea statue, Hyde Park Corner.
ditches filled with water.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

2. The Celts: economy

• They worked iron.

• They were farmers, hunters, fishermen.
• They introduced the iron plough.
• They divided the field into long narrow strips.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

2. The Celts: religion

trees
the sun and
the rivers
moon

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 From the Celts to the Normans

2. The Celts: religion

They believed

• that water was a holy element = source of life, door

to the next world;

• in immortality;

• in the transmigration of the soul from one person

to another;

• that life after death was spent in caves, hills or lakes.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

3. The Romans

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 From the Celts to the Normans

3. The Romans

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 From the Celts to the Normans

4. The Anglo-Saxons

• The Angles, the Saxons and

the Jutes came from the North
Sea regions of Northern Europe.

• They settled south of Hadrian’s

Wall.

• They were looking for farming

land.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

4. The Anglo-Saxons: society

• They were organised in family
groups or clans.
• Loyalty to family and lord was
the most important value.
• The centre of communal life
was the hall.
• They formed seven kingdoms
known as the Heptarchy.
• The kingdom of Wessex
became the most important in
829.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

4. The Anglo-Saxons: Christianisation

• In 597 Pope Gregory I sent
a bishop, Augustine, to
bring Christianity back to
England.

• Canterbury Cathedral was

founded in 602. Augustine
was the first Archbishop
of Canterbury.

• Monasteries became
important cultural centre.

• Lindisfarne was founded

in 635.

• The monks produced

An incipit page of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
illuminated manuscripts.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

5. The Danes
• The Vikings, called ‘Danes’
by the English, were sea
people.

• In 793 they attacked

the monastery of
Lindisfarne.

• By the 9th century they

occupied England.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

5. The Danes
They established the Danelaw

A code of Danish The area

laws administred in
northern and
eastern England

• Their language blended with that of the local population

name places ending in -thorpe, -by and -kirk.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

6. Alfred the Great

Battle of Edington in 878 King Alfred, king of Wessex, defeated
the Danish commander Guthrum

King Alfred
• reorganised the army of Wessex;

• planned a navy with longships;

• established his capital at Winchester;

• had Latin texts translated into Anglo-Saxon

and commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

7. The last Anglo-Saxon kings

• Alfred the Great died in 899.
• His son Edward and then his grandson Athelstan succeeded
to the throne.
• Athelstan created a kingdom by establishing the idea of royal
authority, law and coinage in 927.

• The Viking invasion of 1015 marked the

beginning of the collapse of Anglo-Saxon
England.
• The last Anglo-Saxon king was Harold,
Earl of Wessex.

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 From the Celts to the Normans

8. The Normans

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 From the Celts to the Normans

9. The consequences of the Norman invasion

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 From the Celts to the Normans

10. The feudal system

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